Thursday, May 19, 2011

It's 11:30pm on a Friday. This supposed after-work drink (singular) has morphed into a much longer session than expected, and The Pope keeps talking about the Gold Mine. You haven't eaten since lunch, and your stomach is screaming for pork products stuffed inside a Vietnamese baguette. Where do you turn...

A few weeks ago the local food truck scene expanded by one with the premiere of Geaux Plates, the purple and gold truck making new waves with Uptown bar hoppers. Proprietors Henry Pulitzer and Andrew Gomila have transformed the former Taqueria Chilangos taco truck into a mobile purveyor of local favorites ranging from jambalaya to their own version of a banh mi.

The short menu consists of 6 items, all prices at $7 or under. My favorite is the Bayon Banh Mi (pictured above) which pairs lemongrass grilled chicken and boudin with all of the typical dressings of the classic Vietnamese sandwich. It's like lovin' on Dong Phuong bread, with bonus points to the kitchen for using chicken thighs, which are much more flavorful than breasts. The Cochon de Lait PoBoy has succulent shreds of root beer braised pork plus crunchy mirliton and red onion slaw and pickled chiles for heat. And though the Fancy Ass Grilled Cheese was probably created with the most inebriated of patrons in mind, even the stone-cold sober can appreciate the molten mixture of melted gruyere, red onion marmalade, and grilled portabellos between buttery sliced bread.

Fork-worthy dishes are jambalaya and the Breaux Bridge Breakfast (boudin cake topped with a fried egg), but for some reason using utensils to eat while standing outside a bar never really worked for me. Instead, I recommend requesting a fried egg ON TOP of the Bayou Banh Mi or Cochon de Lait, because nothing takes a sandwich to whole other level like the addition of the gratuitous fried egg and it's rich flowing yolk.

Geaux Plates usually operates Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, moving back and forth between Rendezvous and the Bridge Lounge. You can track them down via Twitter, or just follow my trail of banh mi crumbs.